Upheaval and Insults at the Garden for Knicks

The loudmouth fan stood 20 feet from the famous tunnel at Madison Square Garden, directing his wrath at the Knicks straggling off the court after yet another crushing defeat.

“YOU STINK!!” he screamed. “You can watch the playoffs on television like the rest of us.”

No doubt the players heard him.

In an arena that has been a quiet shadow of its former self this season, it was just the latest in a series of vicious catcalls.

With the way things are going, the days of hurling venom at the Knicks might be numbered. Last call might come May 5 -- final day of the regular season.

For the first time since 1977, Madison Square Garden might be dark during both NBA and NHL playoffs because the building’s basketball team, which was expected to be a legitimate contender in the first year of the post-Jordan era, has been a big disappointment.

So big that it cost Ernie Grunfeld his job.

The Knicks were a study in panic and political self-preservation last week as they yanked the power from their president and general manager during a three-day break heading into this weekend’s games against Charlotte, the hottest team in the league, and Miami, their old sparring partner.

Other struggling teams fire the coach. The Knicks dumped their architect.

“If we had hit big shots in just a couple of closely contested games, we’d still have the status quo,” coach Jeff Van Gundy said.

Instead, they have Garden president Dave Checketts watching over them for the final eight games to decide whether to make more changes in the offseason.

If they miss the playoffs, the first to go would probably be Van Gundy.

“When you coach in New York, you’re judged day to day. That’s just how it is, and you know that going in,” the fourth-year coach said. “I’m not as concerned with my own job right now as I am with winning and losing.”

New York entered the weekend in a three-way tie with Toronto and Cleveland for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, a half-game behind the eighth-place Hornets. The Raptors have the tiebreaker edge over New York, while the Knicks have it over the Cavs. The Hornets-Knicks tiebreaker will be decided Monday night in Charlotte.

The Knicks finish the regular season at the Garden against their former coach Pat Riley and the Heat, a game that could determine whether New York misses the postseason for the first time since 1986-87.

“We’re going to be in the playoffs,” predicted Chris Childs, who has not been able to earn a spot in the starting lineup despite outplaying starter Charlie Ward.

It’s only one of several debatable lineup choices by the coach, many of which contributed to the discord between Van Gundy and the general manager. The rift split the organization into opposing camps and was cited by Checketts as a reason for Grunfeld’s reassignment.

Grunfeld was particularly irked by Van Gundy’s reluctance to give extended minutes to Marcus Camby and the coach’s refusal to play him in an early season loss at Miami. Others have questioned Van Gundy’s rigid insistence on bringing Latrell Sprewell off the bench.

No matter what Van Gundy has done, rarely has it worked.

The team’s chemistry on offense has often been nonexistent, with Sprewell and Allan Houston failing to thrive together on the court, Ward and Childs making turnovers and Patrick Ewing missing three last-second shots in one-point losses.

“They take a lot of quick shots,” said Charles Oakley, whom Grunfeld traded to Toronto for Camby in a wildly unpopular move, especially with Van Gundy. “In the past, you knew John (Starks) would take a lot of quick shots. But John was on the second unit. Everybody is trying to score, and it isn’t going to work. You can’t have five guys looking at the rim.

“That’s what those guys do sometimes, and I know that’s not what Jeff wants. I’ve played for him and I know what he likes.”

On the day Grunfeld was made the fall guy, Checketts traveled by limousine to the team’s practice facility to tell the players of the decision. In that day’s newspapers were the following items about his team:

* Sprewell’s agent said he would demand a trade if the team planned to continue bringing his client off the bench. (Sprewell called his agent’s timing “inappropriate.”)

* Larry Johnson was under investigation by the league office over a magazine report that he exposed himself to a female member of the team’s public relations staff. (He vehemently denied it).

* Ward being accused of wanting female reporters banned from locker rooms. (He clarified that he merely feels uncomfortable getting dressed with women present).

Previous days had brought stories about Ewing’s injured Achilles’ tendon, Houston’s shooting slump, Kurt Thomas’ pouting fit and Childs’ claim of a vendetta by a certain referee.

So irritated was Checketts by the Sprewell article, which ripped Grunfeld and Van Gundy, that he fined Sprewell $25,000 for the agent’s comments.

“He’s responsible for what his agent says,” Checketts said. “When you bring players in, you expect them to be part of the solution, not the problem.”

Indeed, Sprewell has not fit in.

After losing his spot in the starting lineup when he injured his heel in the second game of the season, Sprewell seemed to grow increasingly mystified by his new team when his best friend on the roster, Dennis Scott, was released in early March.

The dour, low-key Van Gundy was irritated by the happy-go-lucky Scott, who reportedly goofed around on a flight back to New York after a humiliating loss at Chicago.

Grunfeld had signed Scott in January to be the team’s long-range shooter off the bench, passing on other available free-agent marksmen like Dell Curry.

Then, unexpectedly, Scott was gone.

“It’s never been explained,” said Sprewell, who still doesn’t understand the move -- especially with the team struggling for fourth-quarter scoring.

The blame for the team’s lack of success can be spread around. The one constant is that the team has been horrific in the final sequences of games, with blown defensive assignments leading to repeated wide-open shots.

“We’ve lost five games where one rebound would have sealed it, and another couple where a defensive stop would have gotten it done,” Van Gundy said. “We turn it over too much, we miss shots more regularly in the fourth quarter and we miss free throws.”

Last weekend, with Oakley and the Raptors in town, Ewing was at the foul line in the final minute with the Knicks trailing by four. It would turn out to be the game that sealed Grunfeld’s fate, a haunting return by Oakley in which he outfoxed the wiry Camby for the game-clinching rebound.

“A thousand dollars he misses the first one,” Oakley shouted with Ewing at the line. “Watch, he’s going to miss the first one.”

And sure enough, Ewing missed.

Another public potshot, another humiliating loss. It was the Knicks’ 1999 season -- at least up to this point -- in a nutshell.